Dennett on 'Could Have Done Otherwise'

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Dennett on `Could Have Done Otherwise' Peter van Inwagen The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 81, No. 10, Eighty-First Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. (Oct., 1984), pp. 565-567. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%28198410%2981%3A10%3C565%3ADO%60HDO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 The Journal of Philosophy is currently published by Journal of Philosophy, Inc..

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F R E E D O M A N D DETERMINISM

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generators in us, not Geiger counter randomizers. T h a t is to say, if our world is determined, all our lottery tickets were drawn at once, eons ago, put in an envelope for us, a n d doled out as we needed them through life. "But that isn't fair!" some say, "For some people will have been dealt more winners than others." Indeed, o n any particular deal, some people have more high cards than others, but one should remember that the luck averages out. "But if all the drawings take place before we are born, some people are destzned to get more luck than others!" But that will be true even if the drawings are held not before we are born, but periodically, on demand, throughout our lives. Once again, it makes n o difference-this time to fairness and, hence, to the question of desert-whether an agent's decision has been determined for eons (via a fateful lottery ticket lodged in his brain's decision-box, waiting to be used), or was indeterministically fixed by something like a q u a n t u m effect at, or just before, the moment of ultimate decision. It is open to friends of the CDO principle to attempt to provide other grounds for allegiance to the principle, but since at this time I see nothing supporting that allegiance but the habit of allegiance itself, I a m constrained to conclude that the principle should be dismissed as nothing better than a long-lived philosophical illusion. I may be wrong to conclude this, of course, but under the circumstances I cannot do otherwise. D INIEL C DENNETT

Tufts University

D E N N E T T O N 'COULD HAVE DONE OTHERWISE1*

D

ANIEL D E N N E T T attacks what he describes as a "shared assumption" of writers on free will:

A is responsible for having done X only if A could have refrained from doing X.

If this sentence is to express a thesis that has been widely accepted, then 'could have' must be read as the past indicative of 'can', where 'Abstract of a paper to be presented in a n APA s)mposium on Freedom a n d Determinism, December 30, 1984, commenting o n Daniel C. Dennett, "I Could Not Hake Done Otherwise-So What?," this JOI.RNAL, this issue, 553-565. 0022-362X/84/8110/0565$00.50

e l 9 8 4 T h e Journal of Philosoph), Inc.

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THE JOLIRNAI. OF PHILOSOPHY

'can' means 'to be able to'. That is, this sentence must be interpreted this way: Was Able A is responsible for having done X only if A was able to refrain from doing X.

But Dennett's arguments show that he is really attacking this principle: A is responsible for having done X only if A could have refrained from doing X in exactly the same circumstances.

Here 'could have' is a past subjunctive form. T h e words following 'only if' are a subjunctive conditional, a 'might' conditional": "

Might Haue A is responsible for having done X only if ( A was in exactly the circumstances A was actually in A refrained from doing X).

Since only a n incompatibilist would accept M i g h t Have, Dennett is not attacking a "shared assumption" of all writers on free will. Moreover, M i g h t Haue can hardly be described as a n assumption, even of those incompatibilists who accept it. They accept M i g h t Have because it is a consequence of Was Able and incompatibilism: M i g h t H a v e is a "foreseen but unintended consequence" of their position. So Dennett's dogs are barking u p the wrong tree. What would happen if they were directed to the right one? Could his arguments and examples be used to cast doubt o n W a s Able? ( O r perhaps I should say, cast further doubt. T h o u g h W a s Able is indeed a widely shared assumption in the free-will debate, Harry Frankfurt has probably shown that it is false.') I do not see how to turn Dennett's arguments against Was Able; for his arguments are essentially directed against a principle containing the qualification 'in exactly the same circumstances'. And this qualification makes sense only when it is applied to a subjunctive 'could have' (='might have'); it makes n o sense to apply it to a n indicative 'could have' (='was able to'). Now if Frankfurt is right and W a s Able is false, then those incompatibilists who accept M i g h t Haue because M i g h t Haue is a consequence of W a s Able and incompatibilism, accept M i g h t H a v e on the basis of a false premise-at least one. But even if Frankfurt is right, there are true propositions that, in conjunction with in. ~ arguments, therefore, compatibilism, entail M i g h t ~ a v eDennett's I "Alternatr Possibilities a n d Moral Responsibilit:," this IOI.RN.%I., I.XI.. 23 (Dec. 4, 1969): 829-833. 'See m: paper "Abilit: and Rrsponsibility," Ph~losophzcalR P Z , W UI .~Y S, I , I I . 2 (April 1978): 201-224, o r m: book An Essay o n Frrr Wzll (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford, 1983), p p . 162-182.

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QLTANTLTM MECHANICS

if they refute Mzght Have, refute incompatibilism by M o d u s Tollens. This fact shows us the most profitable way to read Dennett's paper: as a n attack on incompatibilism. Dennett is not really denying a n assumption made by all the parties to the free-will debate; he is joining one of the parties. But, looked at this way, Dennett's arguments are not really new. Don't they come down to this? T o say that A could have done X is to ascribe to him the following feature: he would have done X if he had tried (or wanted) to-he was not "trapped i n a pocket of local fatalismu-, and, i n relevantly similar future circumstances, he may well try (or want) to. P E T E R VAN IN\$ IGE h'

Syracuse University

CHANCE, REALISM, QUANTUM MECHANICS*

I

S q u a n t u m mechanics incompatible with realism? Although many philosophers a n d physicists would answer Yes to this question, solid arguments for the incompatibility are hard to come by: too often, it is not realism, but some parochial version of realism (e.g., Every object has a definite spatial location) whose i n compatibility with QM is argued for; too often also it is not Q M that is argued to be nonrealistic but only some particular, usually problematic, interpretation of it. I n this paper I present a n argument for incompatibility which comes at the matter from a n u n usual direction a n d which involves only standard, textbook versions of realism a n d of QM. With respect to QM, there are of course some very strange ideas i n the textbooks, on which n o one would want his argument to rest-most conspicuously, the usual *To be presented in an APA symposium of the same title, December 30, 1984. Allen Stairs will comment; see this JOLTRS.AL, this issue, 578/9. In order to be printed here, the original version of this paper had to be drastically cut. Among the topics I most regretted deleting were these: why some of the artificialities involved in seeing all talk about chance as talk about C might disappear, given a better, relativistically acceptable story about measurement; why one cannot treat Q M as a realistic theory by counting a m o n g its axioms statements about what the actual frequencies will be (such a theory would treat as impossible what QM leaves open as possible, a n d so is not Q M ) ; why axioms about what the frequencies would be, in an infinite sequence of trials, won't help either ( i n addition to being again incompatible with Q M , such axioms are one and all false-if it is possible that this coin be flipped infinitely often and never come u p heads, then to say that if it were flipped the limiting frequency of heads would be .5 is to say what is false); a comparison with Isaac Levi's views i n T h e Enterprise of Knowledge (Cambridge, Mass.; M I T Press, 1980) ( n o t so different from my own, I think, as must first appear); chance outside of Q M (I don't think there is any). 0022-362X/84/8110/0567$01.20

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